I tuck the novel deep into my tote bag and glance up at the clock on the wall. “Shit. I’ve really got to leg it. I’ve booked myself for a manicure!”
“A manicure? Who even are you right now?” Leanne calls after me as I run out of the pharmacy.
I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.
25
Today is day seven of Merritt’s Ten Days. Thishasto be the day I finally meet my soulmate in person. Ithasto be the day I save Merritt’s fate at Evermore and, you know, my entire life. Amidst the panic there’s a small, strange feeling that maybe this was exactly how it was supposed to play out. That fate doesn’t want me to meet Jonah again in a park or a drawing class or a silent disco. It wants me to meet him somewhere grand and undeniably romantic. And what’s more romantic than an opulent ballroom? Granted, there will be loads of other people there, which isn’t ideal. But there will be champagne and spectacular lighting and probably some sort of swishy orchestral music.
Last night, before I said good night to Mr. Yoon, I let him know that I’d arranged a food delivery for that evening and that all he had to do was answer the door. I told him I wouldn’t get home until after he’d gone to sleep so would see him for breakfast in the morning. In response, he wrote me a note that said,Go, be young and have fun!, which made me feel a little sad, though I’m not fully sure why.
As I leave for the pharmacy, Cooper pokes his head around his door.
“How did you do that?” I ask. “Know exactly when I’d be in the hall? Have you been poking your head out every few minutes just in case? That’s insane. Or, wait…Do you have a secret camera?” I peer up at the ceiling corners.
“You’re not exactly light-footed, Delphie,” Cooper says, his hand pressed against the top of the doorframe. “It’s known across the whole ground floor.”
“Really?”
He nods his head towards the door opposite his. “Mrs. Ernestine says she knows when you’re on your way out because it sounds like a herd of elephants making their way across the Serengeti.”
“Was there a point to this interaction?”
Cooper frowns and I immediately feel guilty about my snappishness, making a mental note to really try to address it if I get a chance to stay alive. Cooper was surprisingly willing to help me when I turned up to ask him the other night. Even when I told him that he would probably have to come to the gala with me—a pretty massive thing to ask of someone on such short notice. I should try to be nicer.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, softening my tone.
“Just wanted to lend you these,” Cooper says. “I wasn’t sure where in my flat they were, but I eventually found them at the back of a cupboard.”
He hands me a large red jewellery box, the wordCartierprinted in silver on the top. Up close the box is worn and faded, marked in patches where it’s been handled time and again.
I open the box and gasp. Nestled inside is a pair of hugediamond and pearl earrings in a beautifully intricate triangular shape.
“They belonged to Em,” Cooper explains. “She bought them at one of the estate sales she used to love going to. I know this because she wouldn’t stop telling everybody how clever she was to have found them at such a bargain price. They were made in 1922, which, as you know, is the exact year in whichThe Great Gatsbyis set.”
I absolutely did not know that. Either way the earrings are incredible, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. “You…Are you sure?”
This seems like a huge deal. These earrings must have such sentimental value to Cooper, and he doesn’t know me well enough to know that I won’t lose one, which, let’s face it, isn’t entirely unlikely.
He waves my question away. “Nothing more than clever preparation. Nobody will suspect you of being an interloper when you’re wearing vintage diamond earrings that large.”
“These diamonds arereal?” I yelp.
“Of course they are. Cartier doesn’t do cubic zirconia.”
“Holy shit. They must be worth—”
“Enough that I would appreciate you being careful with them, yes.”
I picture myself wandering around the party, clutching my ears the whole time so that the earrings don’t fall out.
“They’re so heavy,” I muse, weighing them in my hands, entranced as they glitter beneath the hallway light.
“Your lobes look sturdy enough,” he replies. “I think you can handle it.”
“I will choose to take that as a compliment.”
“As intended.”
